At a special meeting Wednesday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education Chairman Eric Davis announced that items in ‘Tier 4′ of the district’s tiered FY2012 budget – including teacher assistant positions and Bright Beginnings classes – will be saved because cuts in state funding were not as severe as initially anticipated.

Source: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

CHARLOTTE – Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will be able to keep teacher assistants and Bright Beginnings classes at current levels because of state funding, district officials said June 15.

The $19.7 billion state budget means that CMS will have $43 million in state funding reductions, rather than the $70 million the district anticipated.

“The state funding, coupled with the $26 million from Mecklenburg County, means that CMS will not have to make the cuts in Tier 4 of our proposed budget,” said Eric C. Davis, chairperson of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. “This is good news for our students, our families and our staff.”

Davis discussed the state funding at the Board of Education’s special meeting June 15. The state and local funding will preserve the jobs of 328 teacher assistants, the district said, and of teachers in Bright Beginnings.

The CMS proposed budget included cuts and reductions in four tiers, with the cuts the district least wanted to make in Tier 4. Those included increasing class sizes in grades four through 12 by two students, changing the weighted student staffing formula from 1.3 to 1.25, eliminating one support position at each school, eliminating 328 teacher assistant positions and reducing Bright Beginnings classes from 175 classes offered to 95.

In discussions with Mecklenburg County about local funding, CMS officials said that any additional money the district received would be applied to Tier 4, starting with the last item in the tier list and moving up. The $26 million from the county covered the last two items in Tier 4 – class size and weighted student staffing, which totaled about $24 million. The remaining $2 million will be used to help fund one support position, such as guidance counselor, facilitator or media specialist, at each school and the lower-than-expected state cuts will cover the rest.

“We will be rescinding the reduction-in-force letters that we have sent to teacher assistants in Tier 4,” said Chief Operating Officer Hugh Hattabaugh. “The teacher assistants in Tier 4 will not have to lose their jobs.”

Although five pre-kindergarten centers will be closed for the 2011-2012 school year, officials said, the teachers in those centers will be deployed to classes at other schools.

The Bright Beginnings funding means that 61 teachers, 48 teacher assistants, 38 pre-kindergarten safety assistants and seven support staff will keep their jobs, the district said.

In its budget planning, which began almost a year ago, district officials identified $101 million in reductions. The Board of Education also voted to close 11 schools over the next two years as a cost-saving measure.

Also at the June 15 meeting, Davis said that the Board was beginning the search for an interim superintendent in the wake of Dr. Peter C. Gorman’s resignation June 8. The interim superintendent is expected to be named at the Board’s regularly scheduled June 28 meeting.

Click here to download (PDF) the CMS tiered budget